Talk:Marcel Proust

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Marcel Proust was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

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Contents

[edit] Edit this

"William Faulkner has Proust mentioned during a scene in The Big Sleep." 12/7/2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.174.18.141 (talk) 02:15, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Homosexual or gay

Why does someone keep reverting my change from "homosexual" to "gay"? The WP guidelines tell us to prefer the term "gay". Pleidhce (talk) 03:55, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

For starters, you should have, and were prompted to, explain that change in the edit summary, where you should have provided a link to the page with the guideline you were citing, which you still haven't linked to; at any rate, a quick browsing/Google search doesn't show any guidelines on "gay" versus "homosexual" (unless you're referring to WP:ID, which calls for "gay people" instead of "gays"). Barring a specific caution against it, in this instance, in the context of writing about a historical figure, "homosexual" seems (in my opinion, at least) to provide a characterization with less of the modern connotations of "gay." Wikimancer (talk) 06:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Failed "good article" nomination

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of August 25, 2006, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: The writing needs work. It needs general clean-up work for clarity and precision.
2. Factually accurate?: Generally accurate although some issues remain questionable or need to be further substantiated or fleshed out. Proust's work on Ruskin, for example, which is a particularly interesting aspect of his early literary development, is dealt with here as a rehash of Tadié, which is not a good sign. It needs to be much more synthetic and broad in its approach and reflect the state of Proust scholarship in general. This comment could be applied generally to many of the major themes touched on here. One example: "Literary historians and critics have ascertained that, apart from Ruskin, Proust's chief literary influences included Saint Simon, Montaigne, Stendhal, Flaubert, George Eliot, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy" is a clumsy attempt to provide this kind of synthetic analysis. Readers of a Good Article need to be able safely to assume that the issues, themes & ideas presented reflect up-to-date scholarship (duly referenced and I mifght add here I think the references are on the light side & a tad undergraduate.) Thus: "Proust's main influences reflect the changing world of the nineteenth century novel, both in France and elsewhere" and expain a bit wat that was, since it was experiments of form, character development and plot techniques (or lack of it as a few wags on Proust have noted drily) that is germane here. It would be nice to add a few specific touches as well to give some substance to this kind of boilerplate. I.e. writing landscapes of Daudet, Zola, dramatic reach of Dostoievsky, etc....
3. Broad in coverage?: Not thorough enough. Obviously, this article could be vast given the thousands of scholarly works that have been written about Proust (I recall one entitled "Proust and the Colour Blue" lol), so the job of finding the right synthetic tone and deciding what to include and how is of the utmost importance. This is a daunting task given the stature of the subect and there is some very good stuff here. But I lack the sense that the article benefits from a really substantial digestion of the main themes of that scholarship, viz: early influences, literary influences, interest in expanding existing form and the memory novel. As an example, the article states: Beginning in 1895 Proust spent several years reading Carlyle, Emerson and John Ruskin. Through this reading Proust began to refine his own theories of art and the role of the artist in society What theories of art? What role? This is never coherently addressed, nor tied to the antecedent discussion of his development as a writer, person, etc.... On another note, I personally feel that Proust's homosexuality and his "sickness" need to be much more prominent in this article with respect to defining his life, output and the way he dealt with the world, all critically important to ALRDTP. To be fair, I note the French article is astonishingly peremptory on this: Son homosexualité inavouable dans la société de l'époque est latente dans son œuvre.
4. Neutral point of view?: yes
5. Article stability? yes, but just as I think its current content could be tightened up considerably, I think its form could be usefully expanded. I would not give a definitive structure, but it might be useful to divide up his early life (childhood) from the later period extending to the withdrawal when he wrote ALRDTP. Also, I would like to see something about the reaction to the work in this article, even if that also belongs to the book's main article. But where's Gide, Maurois, Breton, or any of the other hundreds of writers who had wildly different reactions to the man, and his role in redefining the French novel. I think this alone is a major lacuna.
6. Images?: I love that picture of Proust!

When these issues are addressed, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. Thanks for your work so far. --Eusebeus 21:19, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] comment

Reverted to the page I've added a comment to. No need for sticking to puerile dull pages full of gossip only.

Mir Harven

[edit] Albert / Albertine

I removed the following sentence and a half for the reason cited below:

convincingly demonstrates its logical incoherence. For example, if Albertine is "really" a man, are "her" same-sex affairs, about which the Narrator obsesses at length, "really" heterosexual?

It's not logically incoherent at all! Albertine was almost certainly based on Proust's sometime driver and later secretary, Alfred Agnostinelli, who was both male and (primarily) hetereosexual. The narrator fears (with good reason) that his male companion is betraying him with women. (Agnostinelli was married and a greater womanizer, even as he provided some kind of sexual solace to Proust.

Mark Calkins responding to the above:

Sedgwick contends the theory is problematic because it suggests two readings of Marcel's affair with Albertine whose consequences conflict with other elements of the novel.

According to the theory, Albertine is "really" the same gender as the narrator Marcel, i.e., male. In Sedgwick's first reading, Albertine's love objects remain female, but if this is the case, then Albertine is no longer a homosexual (as in the novel), but a heterosexual. The consequence of this reading is to greatly reduce the homosexual theme in the novel, in sum, reducing "Sodom and Gomorrah" to just "Sodom" (Mlle Vinteuil's lesbianism, I would argue, only has its force because of Albertine's possible homosexual ties to her; in "Swann's Way" it is not lesbianism, but sadism that is the subject of the scene at Montjouvain). In the second reading, which preserves the homosexual theme of the novel, Albertine is having affairs with other men. The consequence of this reading is to render void one of the primary motives for Marcel's obsession over Albertine's affairs, namely, as affairs between two women, they are maddeningly unimaginable to him.

Finally, it seems to me that the "transposition of sexes theory" negates any parallelism or prefiguration between Swann's affair with Odette and Marcel's affair with Albertine. Of course it could be reasonably argued that the former heterosexual relationship and the latter homosexual relationship are similar to the degree that they are both relationships of jealousy and obsession, but I would reply that one of the major impulses of Proust's analyses is to distinguish homosexual practices. That said, although the comparison is not explicitly foregrounded in the novel, Charlus's homosexual relationship with Morel is not unlike in many ways Marcel's relationship with Albertine, and if we were to go looking for the appearance of Proust's relationship with Agostinelli in the novel, it is perhaps there we might find it.

replying

It does seem very evident that Proust used the comic aspects of his relationship with Agostinelli (and of course with others) in his depiction of the Charlus/Morel affair, while reserving the tender and heartbreaking aspects for the Narrator/Albertine affair.

I have no difficult whatever in reconciling the Narrator's agony over Albertine's lesbianism with the theory that Albertine is really Alfred (or Albert). The agony results from fear of a relationship that the Narrator can't control or really understand. I don't know of any heterosexual men who get twisted into knots over the thought of women loving women--quite the contrary, in fact. So the Narrator's agony has always struck me as rather unreal. But if Albertine is really Albert (or Alfred), and is basically hetereosexual, now there is a threat!

--Cubdriver 21:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Mark Calkins responding to Cubdriver:

Fair enough. I'm not convinced, however, that just because you don't know any heterosexual men like the Narrator that your assertion is valid. I'm quite happy when a writer shows me worlds and characters I'm quite unfamiliar with...that's why I read fiction, after all. In fact, I don't know anyone quite like the Narrator, but that doesn't make the character any less believable. I try not to judge fiction by my own experiences (but the question of verisimilutude does arise on occasion).

I do find his obsession over Albertine "unique," but his needy relationship with his mother (which he invokes repeatedly in The Prisoner, comparing his need for Albertine to his need for his mother's good-night kiss), his nosiness à la Aunt Léonie (whom he acknowledges he grows to resemble), the prefiguration of his jealous behavior in that of Swann with Odette (and I doubt anyone would dare to read that affair as a homosexual relationship à clef), all contribute towards making his unique behavior more plausible to me. In sum, I don't feel the need to resort to speculation about how Proust's homosexuality finds itself in his fictional creation in order to plausibly understand his Narrator's behavior.

Swann's amour

Well, Proust was the author of "Swann in Love", and we must assume that he understands the Swann/Odette affair the way he (Proust) understands love in his own life. In this case, Odette may physically resemble such women as Laure Hayman, and therefore impress us as a more "live" woman than Albertine, but the clanging emotions must be drawn from Proust's own life, and therefore probably owe more to his love for Reynaldo Hahn. If Swann's amour strikes us as more reasonable, it may perhaps be due to the fact that Proust's youthful relationship with Hahn was a) consummated and b) reciprocated, at least for a time. --Cubdriver 21:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Art and life

What is all this crap! If you're interested in Proust's sexuality, there's plenty of information in the biographies. If you're interested in the novel, read the novel. Thinking that you can "understand" the novel in terms of Proust's personal life is an exercise for an idiot who doesn't deserve the privilege of reading "In Search of Lost Time". Geoffw1948 18:30, 1 June 2007 (UTC) Geoff Wilkins


André Gide on this key matter:


Not the least of Charles Scott-Moncrieff's many mistranslations of Proust is the title he invented for the second novel in the Times Lost series, À l' ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, which he called Within a Budding Grove.

Admittedly hard to translate euphoniously, Proust's French title means, literally, 'Under the Shade of Young Girls Wearing Flowers'.

His invention leaves out the pun in à l' ombre, ('under the shade',) which can also mean 'under the protection of', 'hidden behind', 'under the disguise of', 'under cover'.

This is a key double entendre. Most seemingly heterosexual relationships described in this novel and throughout the series are really homosexual affairs told "under the shade". Thus the character 'Albertine' is the cover for, patterned after, Proust's own chauffeur and low-class paramour, Alfred Agostinelli who, like the equally unworthy 'Albertine', also died in an accident.

Indeed Proust would become much more forthcoming in later installments and, in the fourth book of the series, Sodome et Gomorrhe, —nervously titled by CS-M 'The Cities of the Plain'—as well as later, he became franker to the point of being revolutionary in his depiction of characters like 'baron Charlus', 'Saint-Loup' and 'Chales Morel'. By then, though, the damage had been done: real, passionate love between beautiful young men is told "in code", whereas only the degrading and vicious side of gay life is left to the undisguised gay men of the latter parts of Time Lost, vicious old queens like the baron or golddigging whores like Morel.

In his diary for May, 1921, André Gide tells of a typically nocturnal meeting with Proust at the latter's appartment:


he reproaches himself for that "indecision" which led him, on conceiving the "heterosexual" portions of his book, to transpose "under the shade of young girls" all that which his homosexual conscience recalled as graceful, tender and charming, so that all he had left for [the much franker] Sodome [et Gomorrhe] was the grotesque and the abject.

But he seems really pained when I tell him that this makes it appear as though he had wanted to stigmatise homosexuality; he protests; and I finally understand that much that we may find ignoble, laughable or disgusting does not seem so repulsive to him. When I ask him if he will ever represent that kind of love under the appeareance of youth and beauty, he answers that beauty almost never attracts him and that it has little to do with lust. As for youth, it lends itself best to the kind of transmogrification [of which he has been guilty.]


Tantris 01:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] re. Tolstoy

"Proust's work is heavily influenced by his reading of Tolstoy, as evidenced in the views he gives on art, some of the ways in which he models psychology and social interaction, and in certain episodes such as the trip to Venice (cf. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina)."

Could we get some attribution on this? After writing a dissertation on Proust, I can't think of a single secondary text that suggests he was "heavily influenced" by Tolstoy. If a reference can't be found, or some substantiation, I'd like to remove this claim.--Mcalkins 05:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this must be an overinterpretation. Albertine is killed by accident by a horse and Anna Karenina is on purpose stepping in front of a train. Furthermore Tostoy, like all the big Russian authors, appears to be more influenced by the French language than the other way around.

[edit] re. 1,001 nights

"Proust himself claimed that In Search of Lost Time was his attempt at writing a French incarnation of The Thousand and One Nights."

Again, could a reference be included? It is clear that the narrator of RTP state his work-to-be will resemble the 1,001 nights, but I've never heard tell that Proust claimed that's what he was doing. A biographical reference? a letter? If not, I'd like to change the text to make clear it's his narrator, not Proust himself.--Mcalkins 05:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


You know, both the Tolstoy comment and the 1001 Nights comment have always read poorly to me, and I've also wondered about references. I'm not sure who added them, but they've been around for a while (over six months at least). If no one responds quickly, I'd go ahead and delete them.Ahpsp 19:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree fully. It is far fetched and not backed up by analysis. To me RTP in terms of literary influences appears to be nothing but a synthesis of Bergson's defaitism and the French stilistic tradition, represented by 18th and 19th century Paris-based writers such as Goncourt, Hugo and Rosseau.

[edit] re. literary influences

The following was recently added:

"Literary historians and critics have ascertained that, apart from Ruskin, Proust's chief literary influences included Saint Simon, Montaigne, Stendhal, Flaubert, George Eliot and Dostoevsky."

I don't really dispute this claim, although I think things are not as straightforward as this, and it's probably not without some controversy. I'm happy to keep it if we can get a reference or attribution; otherwise, I think it should be deleted until we do get an attribution/reference. I'll give it a few days.--Mcalkins 01:35, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

The connection to Tolstoy according to me remains weak, whereas it is rather obvious that there are influences from e.g. Stendahl or Dostoevsky, Lucien Leuwen being as neurotic as the key person of RTP in his various correspondences and Dostoevsky’s psychological complexity exposing clear similarities to Proust’s roundabout perspectives on human interaction. On the other hand you would hardly find a comic character like Marmeladov or Myskjkin in Proust's writing, whereas there are other analogies in terms of individual figures, such as the exagerrated childishness of Aglaja and Albertine. If Tolstoy’s epic mastery and thoroughly designed character galleries are to be related to a French author it is possibly Balzac.

/Copywriter

[edit] Homosexual or bisexual?

A User writes that it is "well-known" that Proust had a romantic interest in his maid. If by "maid" the User means Celeste Albaret, this assertion is absolutely false. If he means another unnamed maid, this assertion needs to be sourced.

That said, although I'm not sure why so much attention should be paid to Proust's sexuality, a more nuanced picture could be developed here: his chilhood infatuations with girls, his schoolboy infatuations with his male schoolmates, his relationships with Reynaldo Hahn, Agostintelli, his Swedish secretary (male); one critic (I'd have to look up the reference) suggests that in these relationships Proust masturbated rather than had intercourse.

In any case, it's better to source these kinds of assertions if the paragraph is expanded or revised.--Mcalkins 19:42, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I don`t think specific sexual activity (i.e. masturbation vs intercourse) really has much bearing on the content of this article, although I do believe Proust`s sexuality as such is important enough to warrant inclusion here. However, I think the current representation has a few problems. The article presently states that,
Proust, who was homosexual, was one of the first European writers to treat homosexuality at length.
Is there maybe a better way of writing this? It sounds ridiculously clinical, not to mention having a slightly negative connotation... --Todeswalzer|Talk 03:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

And what negative connotation would that be?Tantris —Preceding comment was added at 18:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

You should read le Marquis de Sade (18th c.), and I also suggest rereading Diderot's Les Bijoux indiscrets with a fresh eye and a keener ear. --Anne97432 (talk) 05:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

This article claims he was homosexual. The article on his primary work, In Search of Lost Time, says: Though the narrator himself is heterosexual, he invariably suspects his lovers of liaisons with other women. I have no idea but it seems to me these comments should be consistent or omitted. wgoetsch (talk) 04:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 2,000 Characters?

I'm assumung that this is a mistake. Surely a book of over 3,000 pages would have more than 2,000 characters. Unless of course, this is the epitome of "Large Print" books. My source says 9,609,000 characters(http://www.bookspot.com/ask/longestbook.htm). But I am reluctant to change this in case I am just reading it wrong. White Lightning 05:37, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid BookSpot has it wrong. It's about 2,000 characters. Just think, if it were 9,609,000 characters that's an average of approximately 3,203 characters for every page of he book. Even if the characters where just listed on each page, there's not enough room on each page for so many characters. I think not.--Mcalkins 17:59, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
You are misunderstanding each other. 2000 literary characters; 9 million alphanumeric characters. — goethean ॐ 18:02, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
I read it the same way as White Lightning. I also fail to see how 3,203 characters per page is any more ridiculous than having 0.667 characters per page. To end the confusion that Goethean identified, I intend to edit the article to include both figures. Paranoidblogger 19:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Marcel Proust

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 16:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. I've now drastically changed my original comment, since I hadn't originally noticed your comment. I was suggesting the inclusion of an "in popular culture" section in the article or some such thing, which still involves grouping this information (whether or not it's a separate article). The article for Proust's In Search of Lost Time includes an "in popular culture" section. It would seem the article about the author would reference this as well, though it'd be nice not to duplicate information. A separate article as you suggest would cover that quite nicely. -Quintote 02:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quote

This quote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes,” attributed to Proust, is all over the place, but it is never properly referenced. Was it in a novel? Sylvain1972 20:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IPA

Right now the IPA transcription for his name simply reads /prust/. I'm not sure if this is accurate. The /r/ should be a /ʀ/ uvular trill and shouldn't the final /t/ be left off? I know we say it in English, but I think the final consonant should be dropped. /pʀus/ seems more accurate. Thoughts? JesseRafe 04:15, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The indicated pronunciation is fine as it stands, provided that the 'r' be understood as a generic rhotic phoneme, which can be realized either as an uvular or an alveolar trill. As to the final /t/, to omit it would be an outright mistake. Pseudo account 06:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
To pronounce it without a final /t/ would be tantamount to pronouncing the existing patronyms Proux, or Proult. --Anne97432 (talk) 05:23, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Remembrance of Things Past??

Why is this (old, inaccurate) title used as a subheading, although the new English translation is entitled In Search on Lost Time? I think we ought to use this version here as well, basically because it's close to the orginal French title. E.J. 13:24, 20 April 2007 (UTC)


I agree entirely. This comment has far more weight than all the surrounding claptrap confusing the novel with Proust's real-life sexuality. Geoffw1948 18:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC) Geoff Wilkins

Unfortunately the above comment indicates a slight mix-up of the translation of the entire suite of novels, which may well be translated "In Search on Lost Time" and the last part "Temps retrouvé", for which that translation obviously does not fit. Prior to the publishing of the new English translation a few years ago, there was indeed a discussion among the experts whether this was to be named "Finding time again" or "Remembering things past", with a distinction between the two alternatives not merely semantic in nature. However finally the English title became "Time regained", closer to the first alternative, confirming that the comment in this forum was basically correct in discarding "Remembering things past", although the final version of the new title was not quoted. Another variant, based on the translation of a the book "Paradise reclaimed" by the Icelandic Nobel Prize Laureate Laxness could in consequence be "Time reclaimed". //Copywriter August 3rd 2007

[edit] Hahn and wording

I recast two bits here, changing "P was a homosexual, and though not completely forthcoming [I paraphrase] ..." to "P, who was homosexual, was one of the first..."--something about "who was a homosexual" seemed antiquated to me. The line about "not completely open" immediately following seemed like it would be out of place in articles on heterosexuals--as did the subsequent line about Hahn--so I cut these. Hahn is now mentioned as "friend and sometime lover" later in the entry. Cyrusc 09:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proust and Freud

Under Influences I have deleted Sigmund Freud.

On page 451 of his enormous biography MARCEL PROUST: A Life (Paris, Gallimard, 1996; New York, Viking, 2000) Jean-Yves Tadié, one of France's leading Proust authorities and editor of the latest Pléiade Critical Edition of À la Recherche du temps perdu, states categorically: "...Freud, of whom Proust was totally unaware."

I have posted a request, in the Discussion part of the French Wikipedia article on Freud, for some clarification as to when the first French translations of Freud began to appear. Although the Interpretation of Dreams was published in 1909, I doubt that it was known in France before Proust's death in 1922.

Freud's essays on Psychoanalysis were first published in 1924. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.206.122.30 (talk) 00:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

And C. Columbus never realised he had discovered America. In his time Freud was a fish in a shoal. Today he stands out as a whale of a contributor. You need perspective on this. --Anne97432 (talk) 05:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


What? What does that last comment even mean? Freud wasn't a fish in a shoal, he was head of the institute, and people were traveling from all over Europe and Asia to see him, all by '09. And Columbus didn't discover America, in any sense. What is your point, despite some strange, fish-inspired metaphor? That Freud was a mammal, rather than a fish, and that he didn't discover America? More to the point, what should define influence is actual mention of Freud in a documented source attributed to Proust, like a journal or a letter. It is pretty ridiculous to assume that Freud was in fact a influence simply because his work was published in Proust's first language. I don't know, but I guess with confidence that Proust certainly spoke and/or read German, being a learned French man of his times. Furthermore, the work that inspired Freud's early work on hysteria with Beuer was actually popularly-known hyponosis studies conducted in Paris around 1870-80. Names and dates escape me, but you can look that up, if you really want. Anyway, my point is that it seems irresponsible to list someone as a influence without the subject actually confirming it. I would hate, if I was ever an author of note, to have someone later assume that I was influenced by "Everybody Loves Raymond", simply because it was a show broadcast in my language in my country during my lifetime. Adam Rothstein (talk) 04:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tolstoy and Proust

Somebody above asked how Tolstoy influenced Proust. There is a passage in ANNA KARENINA in which Anna is described as being in love with an idealized Vronsky, and troubled by whether her image really matches the real man. This is a brilliant throw-away paragraph in Tolstoy's book, but a major theme in Proust's.

I'd like to add that the whole Albertine mess is a flaw in the novel. The book's main theme is "lost time" dramatized by the deaths of beloved characters (the Grandmother, Bergotte) or the loss of illusions (e.g. the Guermantes family's supposed nobility, the contrast between homosexuality and romantic love stories) in which the Narrator is treated as a highly sensitive Everyman. The affair with Albertine doesn't fit the theme at all; it's an attempt to fictionalize a specific phase of Proust's life. Proust would probably have been better off writing two novels, one on the mystical idea of Lost Time and the other analyzing the love affair. CharlesTheBold 14:55, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] categories

I removed several silly categories (alumni of science po ????). I find categories such as gay and LGBT totally redundant, and in the absence of categories such as heterosexual writers (granted will need subcategorizing), monogamous writers, virgin writers (Ruskin) fetichist writers, sex-crazed writers (Casanova), I fail to see the point of highlighting the sexuality of only one group of writers. If sex informs creation, then all sexual persuasions are of the essence. If sex does not, then gay is a redundant category--Anne97432 (talk) 05:17, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unsupported attribution

I would like to know how the aricle can include the following sentence: "Proust, who was homosexual, was one of the first European novelists to treat homosexuality openly and at length." Proust never declared, in speech or print, that he was a homosexual. No eyewitnesses ever declared that they saw Proust commit homosexual acts. How, then, can the Wikipedia article assert and declare that Proust was a homosexual? Is this someone's guess or inference? It is incumbent upon the person who makes a positive statement to provide proof of its truth.Lestrade (talk) 12:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

It seems that there are two sides to this issue. I am on the side that insists that Proust can be called a homosexual only if he declares that he was such or if there were credible eyewitnesses to such behavior. The other side provides a list of book titles that result from a Google search. The books may be fiction or hypothetical. If they purport to provide authentic information, then they must provide Proust's own words or the words of reliable witnesses. Truman Capote, with his book In Cold Blood, was not the first and only person to present pure imagined fiction as though it was fact.Lestrade (talk) 16:54, 27 May 2008 (UTC)Lestrade
  • Lestrade, I enthusiastically invite you to go change the extensive scholarly consensus about this matter. Publish a book or article that receives a peer-reviewed reassessment of Proust's sexuality or perhaps you can demand from the many scholars that have opined on this subject that their views do not meet your burden of proof and that they should retract en masse the overwhelming consensus about Proust being gay. In that instance, I am sure I speak for all editors that we would warmly welcome your views, which otherwise appear to be crass and vulgar homophobia with a side order of gay-baiting. However, until you manage to make your mark (doubtless imminent) in the area of Proust scholarship, perhaps I can commend to your attention Conservapedia, where you will doubtless find a more receptive audience for your revisionist intolerance. Eusebeus (talk) 19:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

The extensive scholarly consensus that you mention does not seem to elicit even one citation of a statement by Proust or any witnesses regarding his sexual activity. By the way, do you realize that your word "homophobia" means "fear of the same"? A Wikipedia article should not include statements that are mere subjective inferences and hypotheses. There is no proof whatsoever that Proust was homosexual. The article contains no citations from the many scholars who have opined (expressed their personal opinion) on this subject. My burden of proof is merely a request that someone, if they are going to make statements in the article, quote an assertion by either Proust or any witnesses regarding his sexual behavior. If this is impossible, then the article should not declare that Proust was homosexual.Lestrade (talk) 13:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

[edit] Lengthy treatment

The article claims that Proust "was one of the first European novelists to treat homosexuality openly and at length." Is it possible to cite one or two places in Proust's writings where he wrote about this topic in lengthy passages. If not, then, at least, please cite places where he wrote about this topic briefly.Lestrade (talk) 16:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

If Lestrade will read Proust's novel À la recherche du temps perdu he will find the answer to his question. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC).

Your answer makes me suspect that there are absolutely no such open and lengthy passages that treat of homosexuality. If there were, then you would be able to say specifically where they are in that book of many pages. For example, you could say something like,"Swann's Way, 'Swann in Love,' Vintage International, Vintage Books, p. 235 ff." Your answer conveys no information at all. Remember, "openly" means that the treatment is not disguised in any way. "At length" means that there are many words in the book that deal with this topic. After reading your answer, I am almost certain that Proust did not write about homosexuality, either openly or at length. The claim in the Wikipedia article appears to be yet another tactic to make homosexuality acceptable.Lestrade (talk) 12:22, 29 May 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Comments like yet another tactic to make homosexuality acceptable are completely unacceptable. Go find another venue for this weak-minded nonsense. Eusebeus (talk) 18:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
To Lesrade my apologies: I had assumed that as a person interested in contributing to this article you were a reader of the French language. However, there are several really excellent English translations of the novel cited in the article and your university library is certain to have at least one of them. Happy reading! Xxanthippe (talk) 02:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC).